Good Big Reactors setup

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Adonis0

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Jul 29, 2019
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Lastly, use a MFR programmable rednet controller to control the big reactor: Use the MFR PRC setting that sets the output to the input to link the Big Reactors Energy remaining with its fuel rod moderation input and the reactor will scale its output (and fuel usage) to your energy usage. Big Reactors run more effeciently when moderated, you will achieve energy efficiencies of over 100MRF/ingot building an oversized reactor and running it heavilly moderated.

So. I get everything but that last bit in your explanation
How do you moderate it with the Rednet? and what exactly is the moderation you're talking about?
 

GreenZombie

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Jul 29, 2019
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So. I get everything but that last bit in your explanation
How do you moderate it with the Rednet? and what exactly is the moderation you're talking about?

First, the programmable rednet controller has a "Passthrough" circuit. This will be useful.

Next, The Big Reactors Rednet Control Port, has a number of output and inputs that can be connected to each PRC signal color.
One of the outputs is Energy Level.
One of the inputs is Fuel Rod Control Level - which corresponds to the moderation level that can be accessed when you right click on each control rod on the top of your reactor.

By connecting these two, via the PRC Passthrough circuit, as the energy buffer of the reactor rises, the fuel rod control level will rise. 100% moderation / fuel rods fully inserted essentially turns the reactor off, and 0% moderation lets the rods run at max (generally least fuel efficient). The result is a reactor that adjusts its fuel consumption to match your immediate energy demand.
 

McJty

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I'm doing something similar but with an OpenComputers program that I wrote. That program basically monitors the internal RF storage of the big reactor and when that gets above some threshold it will lower the rods to decrease the performance of the reactor and when energy is being used the internal RF storage will go down again and then it will raise the rods for higher RF production. In addition my Big Reactor is connected to my AE system and that is connected to a RotaryCraft boring machine + extractor to extract the yellorium + furnaces to melt them to ingots which means that I basically no longer have to look at my reactor at all :)
 
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GreenZombie

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I'm doing something similar but with an OpenComputers program that I wrote. That program basically monitors the internal RF storage of the big reactor and when that gets above some threshold it will lower the rods to decrease the performance of the reactor and when energy is being used the internal RF storage will go down again and then it will raise the rods for higher RF production. In addition my Big Reactor is connected to my AE system and that is connected to a RotaryCraft boring machine + extractor to extract the yellorium + furnaces to melt them to ingots which means that I basically no longer have to look at my reactor at all :)

Does a boring machine load all the chunks between the machine, and the "cutting area"?
It just keeps going. I'd be worried about memory usage and/or the world files themselves just becoming unmanagably large with that setup. I think a MFR mining laser is crucial to a self maintaining Big Reactor.
 

McJty

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Does a boring machine load all the chunks between the machine, and the "cutting area"?
It just keeps going. I'd be worried about memory usage and/or the world files themselves just becoming unmanagably large with that setup. I think a MFR mining laser is crucial to a self maintaining Big Reactor.

As far as I know the boring machine only chunkloads the single chunk where the boring head is. In any case I have two of them running for practically forever and my game still loads reasonably fast.

I've also seen this quote on the internet:

To start off, the Boring Machine's most attractive feature is that you never need to move it. Unlike the Quarry and other similar machines, the Boring Machine does not mine vertically, but instead horizontally. With this behaviour, it can actually mine without a limit on how far it goes. It will continue mining until Forge fails to generate chunks, which means that you probably will never run out of resources. This here is the major reason why I like the Boring Machine more than the Quarry. I can completely forget about the thing and still gather resources without worry. Plus the chunks it's mining in don't even need to be loaded, bringing down chunk loading needs to just the one you've got the Boring Machine in.

But I'm not actually sure. Perhaps Reika can comment on the technical implications of letting a boring machine run forever?
 

Slayerofasz

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Jul 29, 2019
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if you're looking for soemthing completely ridiculous i just made a setup that's pushing 20k+ rf/t 9x9x5 total size with 13 rods in a checkerboard pattern (1 space around the edges obviously) the coolant i'm using is resonant ender, hooked up rednet to it so that it doesn't put out power that won't be used. Cranked it wide open when i first started it up and it capped at 20,700 rf/t.
 

Quesenek

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have been using the *x*x3 reactor design with the fuelrods going every other block so that there is coolant on all sides of the fuelrod for some time now and honestly I think its the best design because the larger I build it the multiplier jumps higher and higher. I may not understand how big reactors work but I'm running a 64 fuelrod reactor in the same design and its producing 45ishk RF/t and its using a very little amount of yellorium I can keep up with it and a 12 fuelrod reactor running a single laser collecting the yellorium so I really cannot argue with the results of my design lol.
 

denecity

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Jul 29, 2019
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i know the thread is a little bit old but i wanted to share my reactor + turbine build that produces about 500-550 million RF with 1 yellorium.
it uses 1 mb of yellorium about every 800 ticks. so its about 900 mb yellorium / hour . its an 3x3x3 reactor filled with rods ... no coolant ... only rods.
the controll rods are adjusted like that (its like a picture from the top) :
100% 90% 100%
100% 70% 100%
100% 90% 100%
the reactor gets water from an aqueous accumulator and from the turbine.
the turbine is a 5x5x7. it has 16 blades and 8 enderium coils (so like 4 layers of blades and 1 layer of coils).
the vent is set to overflow only. you need to set it to 435 mB/t to get exactly 1800 RPM.
it will output between 6168 and 6169 RF/t .
I had id hooked up an mfr laser drill without focuses and it could supply itself while still outputting a lot of energy.
 
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Skyqula

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have tried quite alot of Big Reactor setups and found a 7x7x7 to have the best results. Its at 980 degrees, wich seems to be just below the point where powergenerator drops off ALOT. Mine is cooled with gelid cryotheum instead of water and produces over 1700RF/t. As for the fuel rod pattern, see spoiler :)

bQFzyaB.png

When cooling with water I found a 6x6x6 reactor with a 2x2 fuel rod surrounded by water to be most effective. Produces ~1300RF/t.

Well this is an ancient threat :D
 

denecity

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Jul 29, 2019
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nah i just wanted to present my setup for other people to use :D
i havent found a better one so...
 

denecity

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Jul 29, 2019
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Thanks for the spreadsheet it helped me to improve my design even further. i found out that rods is a more efficient "coolant" as it keeps the radiation high. i only needed 435 mb/t for my setup so most of the rods are 100% down.
my radiation is at 350-400% all the time. My heat is 250-300 so i think pretty much made one of the most efficient 3x3x3 reactor to 3x3x5 turbine design with around 6000 rf/t.

I can give you the world (monster 1.1.1) where i build this reactor and did some other tests
but it still needs improving cause it tends to be instable in every way cause no coolant....
 
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DeeOhh

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Jul 29, 2019
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I've been playing about with a reactor in my crash landing playthrough and I seem to get really good output with a 9x9x9 reactor that has 25 rods arranged in a 5x5 square in the centre then surround them with enderium blocks it takes a lot of yellowish to fill but I purposely only fill it to between 35%~40% and the control rods are all set to 90% I know there's setups that are a lot cheaper on materials and more space efficient but I've found with this setup it's fuel efficiency is pretty damn good and because of the size once it's filled to 40% I can leave it for a good few hours before it drops to 35% and it provides more than enough power for my needs which includes 5 pulverizers that are putting out dust into my auto sieving setup which has 28 sieves so I'm outputting plenty of yellorium dust into my AE network for fuelling it all and I'm planning to get a BR turbine setup soon to experiment and make use of some of the first reactors waste

EDIT: just double checked my setup and I'm getting 4.24~4.25 KiRF/t power using 0.04mb/t fuel, radiation fluctuates between 432% to 435%, case heat is 258 steady and core temp fluctuates between 272 ~ 273 max fuel capacity is 700000mb but I only fill it to around 246000mb. From an empty charge cold start to a full charge of 10mrf unburdened takes around 1m15s.
 
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Gamefury64

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Jul 29, 2019
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I've been playing about with a reactor in my crash landing playthrough and I seem to get really good output with a 9x9x9 reactor that has 25 rods arranged in a 5x5 square in the centre then surround them with enderium blocks it takes a lot of yellowish to fill but I purposely only fill it to between 35%~40% and the control rods are all set to 90% I know there's setups that are a lot cheaper on materials and more space efficient but I've found with this setup it's fuel efficiency is pretty damn good and because of the size once it's filled to 40% I can leave it for a good few hours before it drops to 35% and it provides more than enough power for my needs which includes 5 pulverizers that are putting out dust into my auto sieving setup which has 28 sieves so I'm outputting plenty of yellorium dust into my AE network for fuelling it all and I'm planning to get a BR turbine setup soon to experiment and make use of some of the first reactors waste

EDIT: just double checked my setup and I'm getting 4.24~4.25 KiRF/t power using 0.04mb/t fuel, radiation fluctuates between 432% to 435%, case heat is 258 steady and core temp fluctuates between 272 ~ 273 max fuel capacity is 700000mb but I only fill it to around 246000mb. From an empty charge cold start to a full charge of 10mrf unburdened takes around 1m15s.
image.jpg
 

Dormaler

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Jul 29, 2019
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The setup with the most rf per yellorium is the 7×7×7 with 5 rods in a x pattern which have gold blocks between the rods and this surrounded with liquid ender..
 

Skyqula

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Jul 29, 2019
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The setup with the most rf per yellorium is the 7×7×7 with 5 rods in a x pattern which have gold blocks between the rods and this surrounded with liquid ender..

Far from it (its actually pretty bad). Direwolf20 watcher? You should take annything he says with a grain of salt, especially when he talks about "best".
 
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xanderhunter

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Jul 29, 2019
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A few questions about the screen shot from sky, is it basically a 3x3x3 center surrounded completely by gelid cyrotheum, or are the top and bottom something different?
 

rhn

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The setup with the most rf per yellorium is the 7×7×7 with 5 rods in a x pattern which have gold blocks between the rods and this surrounded with liquid ender..
Lolol gold...
Best I can pull out of that is 85 kRF/mB
http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...odInsertion=59&layout=G3EGEXLX2ELXL2EXLXEG3EG

A simple 3x3 Fuel rod with Cryotheum around it easily gets 102kRF/mB
http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...olRodInsertion=82&layout=G3CGC3X2C3X2C3XCG3CG

And if you build larger reactors than 7x7 foot prints you can beat 150kRF/mB.
Like just increasing the footprint to 9x9 = 115kRF/mB:
http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...layout=2G3E4G3C2GEC3XC2EC3XC2EC3XCE2G3C4G3E2G

EDIT: Gah... fell for the double necroing...
 
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64diamondblocks

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Jul 29, 2019
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A very good steam-producing reactor (for the DW20 pack) would be 7x7 base and 9 blocks tall, on the outside. Inside, you should put 5 fuel rods in a + plus formation, and fill the rest of the reactor with Gelid Cryotheum.

The best way to run this is at full power. At full power it will produce 11.4 Buckets per tick. This will power 6 turbines, including 5 fully sized turbines with at least 84 blades and 37 enderium blocks. These 5 big boys will generate 24,000 RF/t each, making 120,000 RF/t total, and will be using 10 Buckets per tick. The other 1.4 Buckets/tick can be used to power a smaller turbine that will generate about 10,000 RF/t or more. Giving you about 130,000 RF/t total RF generation, equal to 1625 dynamos.

The fuel this will use is 1.55 MB/t, which equals 83,870 RF/MB. Which means you can fill up a Resonant Energy Cell completely with a little less than 1 yellorium ingot, with the reactor always running. With ComputerCraft automation, you can make this like 1 resonant energy cell per Yellorium NUGGET (9 cells per ingot). That's a lot of power. You can fill a very large power bank with 10 ingots at most, and more likely around 4 for a very large power bank.

Also, at this efficiency, 1 full powered turbine will be using 0.28 mb/t, which is very very efficient. And don't forget you can make it far more efficient by getting the turbines up to a certain speed, turning off the reactor and letting them run until it slows its RPM down too much, and only turning the reactor on to increase the speed once in a while. All this could be automated with Computer Craft.

With a fully equipped reactor of this design, you can fill a tier 7 Draconic Evolution Energy Core (which holds Trillions of RF) with about a Full Iron Chest's worth of Yellorium Ingots (not that that's a small amount, but it's 2.14 TRILLION RF!!!!!!!!) That's 26,750 resonant energy cells, which is about 4 diamond chest's worth of resonant energy cells If they stacked to 64.